Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The stock is down $3.05 at $136.35.
I don't understand why analysts take the risk of tooting their horns two or three days before an earnings release.
You have to be right about both the numbers and the market's reaction to the numbers.
As I said in yesterday's "Cowen’s Stone Reiterates OUTPERFORM on First Solar" (FSLR)" (emphasis added):

...Be careful. The company reports on the 29th and the stock has run up from $102ish. For the last four quarters there has been a pattern of mystery/history, buy on rumor, sell on news. The big positive is that FSLR announce last quarter that current production capacity was sold out for the year. They are trying to get a couple more lines up and running....

I'll have an example* after the jump. From SmallCapPulse:

Analyst Comments – Credit Suisse’s Satya Kumar updated his view on First Solar (Nasdaq:FSLR) this week, maintaining an OUTPERFORM rating on the stock and a $150 price target.

Key Takeaways:

·FSLR is reporting C2Q10 results after the close on July 29, and Kumar is modeling C2Q rev/EPS $554.1M/$1.65, noting that the stronger Euro rate in the quarter added only a penny to estimates...MORE

For what it's worth, the fact that I'm posting this probably indicates that FSLR is due for an uptick and CREE a down. Karma and all that.
Plus First Solar has the largest percentage short interest of any stock in the S&P 500, so an up-move could be pretty dramatic.

On January 19 Mr. Mishra went bearish on CREE with earnings due after the close. The stock closed at $54.21. Cree reported, we posted "Cree Crushes Street Estimates; Stock Leaps (CREE)" (lots o'links) and the next day the stock closed at $63.59, up 17.30%.

Although we saw the TTD post we chose not to link to it, it made no sense.

Two days later, we posted "Is Cree, Inc. (CREE) Likely to Burn Out?", linking to a piece by Tom Konrad at AltEnergyStocks, "Pioneering light-emitting diode (LED) maker Cree Inc. looks overvalued".
I commented on Tom's propensity to be early and mentioned Mishra:

...That said, he [Tom -ed] is a very good stock-picker and knows his stuff, the PhD notwithstanding. Here's what he wrote three days ago. We sat on it to get through the earnings report (just as we sat on the Tech Trader Daily post "Cree: Brigantine Cuts To Sell Ahead Of Earnings Tonight").

In the case of the Brigantine analyst we figured he had flipped a coin in an attempt to get some publicity, something that is contrary to any reading of fiduciary law and philosophy that I've ever seen.
In Tom's case I just figured he was early. The stock was up almost 17% yesterday....

Despite the gyrations in the market over the last five weeks CREE closed Thursday at $66.96, up 23.51% since Mr. Mishra said sell it.

Remember, the company has a two year string of earnings beats that have fed into the "buy on mystery, sell on history" price pattern for the stock. With options expiring tomorrow the maximum pain is at the $120 strike price.*...

First solar will be reporting their fourth quarter and year end after the close on Thursday February 18.
The only surprises I can envision would be negative. The December 16th 2010 outlook conference call was the high water mark. No one was impressed. The stock had an intraday high of $142.66 the day before and made a double top on January 7, trading as high $142.46.